There was a sound similar to the rush of a tropical waterfall. Mittal unzipped his clean suit and felt around in his pants pockets. He pulled out his cell phone and said, “If you will excuse me,” before heading back into the garage.
Amanda turned to Charlie. “Brass tacks?”
“They’re not giving me full access, but there’s no reason for me to disagree with what Ahbi’s said so far.”
“And?”
“I don’t want to sound racist,” Charlie began, “but you don’t often see Mexicans and Asians working together. Especially Los Texicanos.”
“Younger kids aren’t as hung up on that sort of thing,” Will offered, wondering if that could be called progress.
Amanda didn’t acknowledge either comment. “What else?”
“The list by the phone.” Charlie pointed to a piece of yellow paper with a bunch of numbers and names. “I took the liberty to call the number for Zeke. I left a message for him to get in touch with you.”
Amanda looked at her watch. “What about the rest of the house? Did forensics find anything?”
“Not that they’ve told me. Ahbi’s not being overtly rude, but he’s not going out of his way to volunteer anything, either.” Charlie paused before adding, “It seems obvious whatever the bad guys were looking for wasn’t found, otherwise they would’ve cleared out the minute Faith pulled up.”
“And we’d be planning Evelyn’s funeral.” Amanda didn’t dwell on the fact. “Whatever they were searching for—what would you guess the size of this mysterious item to be?”
“No telling,” Charlie admitted. “Obviously, they were looking everywhere—drawers, closets, cushions. I think they got angrier as they went through the house and started destroying on top of searching. They ripped open the beds, broke the baby’s toys. There’s a lot of fury in there.”
“How many searchers?”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Wagner.” Mittal was back. He tucked his phone into his pocket but left his white suit gaping open. “That was the ME. He’s been delayed by the discovery of another body at the apartment fire. What was your question?”
Charlie answered for her, perhaps sensing that Amanda’s tone might get them thrown out of the house. “She was asking how many searchers you thought there were.”
Mittal nodded. “An educated guess would be three to four men.”
Will saw the disgusted look on Amanda’s face. It had to be more than three, otherwise all the suspects were dead and Evelyn Mitchell had kidnapped herself.
Mittal continued, “They did not wear gloves. Perhaps they thought Captain Mitchell would relent without a struggle.” Amanda snorted a laugh and Mittal gave another one of his patented pauses. “There are fingerprints on most surfaces, which of course we will share with the GBI.”
Charlie said, “I’ve already called the lab. We’ve got two techs coming in to digitize them and put them in the database. From there it’s only a matter of time before we know if they’re in the system.”
Amanda indicated the kitchen. “Once Evelyn was neutralized, they would’ve started their search in here. They were looking through drawers, so it’s something that would fit in a drawer.” She looked up at Charlie, then Mittal. “Any tire tracks? Footprints?”
“Nothing of consequence.” Mittal walked her over to the kitchen window and started pointing out things in the backyard that had been checked. Will studied the broken CDs on the floor. Beatles. Sinatra. No AC/DC. The player was white plastic, smudged with black fingerprint powder. Will used his thumbnail to press the eject button. The tray was empty.
Amanda’s voice came back to him. “Where did they keep Evelyn while they were tearing up the house?”
Mittal started toward the living room. Will took up the rear as Charlie and Amanda followed the doctor through the path of debris. The setup was similar to Mrs. Levy’s house, minus the sunken aspect of the living room. Opposite the couch and a wingback chair were a wall of bookshelves and a small plasma-screen television with a foot-sized crack in the center. Most of the books were strewn across the floor. The couch and chairs had been gutted, their frames broken. There was a stereo on the shelf by the TV, the old record-playing kind, but the speakers were busted and the arm had been wrenched off the turntable. A small pile of vinyl records had obviously met the hard edge of someone’s heel.
There was a Thonet-style bentwood chair against the wall, the only thing in the room that seemed to have remained intact. The seat was thatched. The legs were scuffed. Mittal pointed to where chunks of veneer had been ripped off. “It appears that duct tape was used. I found adhesive where Captain Mitchell’s feet would’ve been.” He lifted up the chair and moved it away from the wall. A yellow plastic number marker had been placed beside a dark stain. “One can surmise from the blood drops on the carpet that Captain Mitchell’s hands were hanging down. The cut to her finger was still bleeding, but not with any significance. Perhaps my colleague is correct in assuming that she wrapped the wound in a paper towel.”
Amanda leaned down to look at the bloodstain, but Will was more interested in the chair. Evelyn’s hands had been tied behind her back. He used his foot to tilt the chair forward so he could see the bottom of the thatched seat. There was a mark underneath, an arrowhead, drawn in blood.
Will looked out into the room, trying to figure out what the arrow was pointing to. The couch directly across from the chair was gutted, as was the wingback chair to the side. The hardwood floors meant nothing could be hidden under a carpet. Was Evelyn pointing to something in the backyard?
He heard a hiss of air through teeth. Will glanced up to find Amanda giving him such a searing look that he dropped the chair back into place without his brain being aware of what his foot was doing. She gave a slight shake of her head, indicating he should keep his mouth shut about the find. Will glanced at Charlie. They had all three seen the arrow under the chair while Mittal, oblivious, waxed poetic on the efficacy of fingerprinting on porous versus nonporous surfaces.
Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but Amanda talked over him. “Dr. Mittal, in your opinion, was the glass door broken with a found object, such as a rock or lawn ornament?” She glared at Charlie, and Will thought if she was capable of shooting lasers from her eyes, they would’ve sealed Charlie’s mouth shut. “I’m just wondering how well this attack was planned. Did they bring something to break the glass? Did they surround the house? If so, did they know the layout ahead of time?”
Mittal frowned, because these were questions none of them were capable of answering. “Dr. Wagner, these are not scenarios that can be forensically evaluated.”
“Well, let’s just toss it around and see what sticks. Was a brick used to break the glass?”
Charlie started shaking his head. Will recognized the internal conflict. Like it or not, this was Mittal’s crime scene, and there was evidence under the chair—possibly important evidence—that the man had missed. Charlie was obviously torn. As with most things that had to do with Amanda, there was the right thing to do and then there was the thing that she was ordering him to do. Each decision had its consequence.